Nature in Virtual Worlds

This article examines the challenges of translating Mavka: The Forest Song, a culturally rich Ukrainian animated film. It explores how translators must balance linguistic creativity, character integrity, and cultural specificity while ensuring accessibility for global audiences. As a children’s film, the English translation of Mavka plays a crucial role in fostering cross-cultural understanding. The study highlights instances where culturally embedded expressions were simplified or replaced, resulting in a more neutral text as well as a partial loss of its educational and cultural value. Additionally, it discusses how elements like colloquialisms, creative wordplay, and humor could have been better preserved. The paper critiques how the translation compromises the depth of the original by substituting culturally meaningful elements with more general expressions, particularly for young audiences who benefit from exposure to diverse traditions. Ultimately, it argues that while adaptation...

The present examines the relationship between women and nature in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944) from an ecofeminist perspective. Like the American South, which was affected by the presence of the industrial machine, ‘the Southern Belle’ was affected by the patriarchal mindset. The common thread between Williams and some ecofeminists lies their call for preserving nature from the dangers of deforestation and the peril of industrialization, as well as their advocacy for setting women free from various social stereotypes. Starting from Francoise D’Eaubonne’s argument about ‘Green Politics,’ the paper will delve into the intricacies of the female self, focusing on the affinities between the downtrodden Green space and the marginalization of the “handicapped” Laura. Like Green politics, which focuses on creating an egalitarian society, The Glass Menagerie invites the audience to ponder over a better representation of women with special needs. In the same context of calling...

Jednom je davno jedna vještica hodala šumom noseći dijete u pletenoj naprtnjači. Bilo je veliko i ružno, imalo kosu poput čekinja, zube oštre poput šila i kandžu na malom prstu, no vještica je, naravno, smatrala da na svijetu nema ljepšeg djeteta.Uskoro je stigla do mjesta gdje se šuma malo prorijedila. Onuda je prolazila cesta, klizava i neravna od korijenja, i njome su na konjima pristizali seljak i njegova žena.Čim ih je spazila, vještica se htjela odšuljati natrag u šumu da je ne vide, ali uto je shvatila da seljakova žena u naručju nosi dijete, pa se predomislila. Baš da vidim može li ljudsko dijete biti lijepo poput mog, pomislila je i zavukla se iza velikoga grma lješnjaka što je rastao uz rub ceste.No kad su projahali kraj nje, od žara se isuviše protegnula pa su konji ugledali njezinu veliku, crnu, vještičju glavu. Propevši se na stražnje noge, dali su se u trk. Iz sedla su zamalo zbacili i seljaka i ženu mu, koji su oboje prestravljeno kriknuli, nagnuli se naprijed ne bi li d...

The rise of youth-led digital environmental movements necessitates a deeper understanding of the communication strategies that drive their influence. This study provides an analysis of how the Indonesian activist collective, Pandawara Group, builds its movement and influences public discourse through Instagram Reels. Employing a critical-social constructivist approach, this research conducts a qualitative content analysis of 137 Instagram Reels from 2024. It utilizes a dual theoretical framework, integrating media framing with the ecocultural identity framework to decode both the messaging tactics and the activist identity being performed. The findings reveal that Pandawara’s Project stems from the strategic performance of a dual identity: the empathetic “Moral Guardian,” built with “Morality/Ethics” frames, and the inclusive “Pragmatic Collaborator,” constructed with “Middle Way” frames. This dual identity is deployed through a cyclical narrative arc that adapts to the socio-political...

Over the last couple of years, differentiating between the real and the fabricated has become progressively more difficult, with recent technological innovations often being perceived as central contributors to this collective chaos. That being so, Lisa Messeri, with her book In the Land of the Unreal, attempts to provide informed insights into up-and-coming technology, as well as its potential to construct fantasy. Around 2016, she moved to Los Angeles in an effort to create an overview of its virtual reality community, which, according to her findings, is significantly influenced by the surreal presence of the Hollywood film industry. To properly showcase her research, the author divided this book into three main sections: Fantasy of Place, Fantasy of Being, and Fantasy of Representation. Each part embodies a version of reality she encountered in her interactions with LA’s virtual landscapes, simulated experiences, digital storytelling, and their creators. Essentially, Messeri’s dete...

AbstractHidetaka Miyazaki’s Dark Souls trilogy are video games famed for their difficulty and the dark, medievalist esthetic of the world. These stories take place in ruined worlds, and the characters who inhabit them are also ruins in their undead states. These ruined states function as metaphors for depression within these games, which is a theme felt by many of the players who have anecdotal stories of how these games provided comfort, not in spite of their dark and ruined landscapes – but because of them. Keywords: Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, depression, medievalism, ruins, undead, allegory, video gamesWhen thinking of the Dark Souls trilogy, there are many vistas in the games that invite the player to gaze at during their doomed quest. The fallen magnificence of ruined cathedrals and castles, the infamous rot of the poison swamps, and the darkened, perilous corners of graves are all locations in these games. Most of them are marked out as gothic and gloomy, with sui...